Any WinBoard bugs I missed?

[JoshPettus]

Yes, the .app bundle I have built. For OSX intel macs. The code itself will run on any unix system it can be compiled on, providing the dependencies can be met.

[jdart]

FYI if I klll the aplay processes I am seeing a bunch of console errors of the form:

pcm_write: 1939 write error: Interrupted system call

So this indicates it was busy doing something at the system level.

--Jon

[hgm]

That confirms it is a problem outside of XBoard. And probably even outside of aplay. I suspect a buggy sound-card driver.

[hgm]

I assume you are talking about the os x version only? xboard works on everything I have here as we use the source (x11) distribution and compile for each platform.

Indeed, XBoard can run on any *nix-like system where you compile it. But in that case it is dependent on the presence of an X-server or a GTK library, nonnative to OS X. And it would not have the 'feel' of a native Mac App, it would f.e. have the menu bar inside the window.

The OS X App Joshua is talking about is a native OS X port, that displays the menu bar at the top of the screen.

[bob]

I assume you are talking about the os x version only? xboard works on everything I have here as we use the source (x11) distribution and compile for each platform.

Indeed, XBoard can run on any *nix-like system where you compile it. But in that case it is dependent on the presence of an X-server or a GTK library, nonnative to OS X. And it would not have the 'feel' of a native Mac App, it would f.e. have the menu bar inside the window.

The OS X App Joshua is talking about is a native OS X port, that displays the menu bar at the top of the screen.

I need to give this a check. One other quirk that is new and maybe not xboard related. The X11 "geometry" command. I have always used that to force the board to go where I want it. Recent versions seem to choke on the -geometry option, which is not really a problem, but it is new. Any idea what happened there???

[JoshPettus]

Well to clarify, It's still GTK2 so not exactly native, but it's been given some OSX camouflage. And thanks to HGM, it works with various OSX calls to:

Relay the menubar to the native one.
Receive open events from the OS with xboard file types.
Know the bundle path for various resources.
Manipulate the Dock Icon

Or will in a little bit. The last build was quite unfinished.

[hgm]

I need to give this a check. One other quirk that is new and maybe not xboard related. The X11 "geometry" command. I have always used that to force the board to go where I want it. Recent versions seem to choke on the -geometry option, which is not really a problem, but it is new. Any idea what happened there???

In the process of moving towards GTK, XBoard has ceased to be a true X application. It now keeps track of its own settings in a file, and the parameters of all its windows are amongst these settings. Which can also be controlled from the command line, as the settings file is basically just one big command line containing all persistent options.

So the idea is that XBoard will always pop up in the same window configuration as you last used it. It you would want to override that, you can use options -x and -y to overrule the position of the main window, etc.

[kinderchocolate]

Please fix the fatal error

Failed to open indirection file Files\Winboard-4.7.3\Winboard\winboard.ini

HGM, please don't hard-code the installation path.

[hgm]

What exactly were you doing to get this? Were you starting WInBoard from the Windows Start menu? The message you quote is given when paring a -ini (-settingsFile) option from command line or another settings file, but the mentioned path does not occur anywhere hard-coded in a settings file. And since the name coincides with what should be the master settings file, I guess it can only come from a -ini in the command line.

The menu items the installer creates (.lnk shortcut files) have explicit mention of the absolute path of the install directory in their command line. They would not work without that, as starting WinBoard from the menu apparently makes it unable to find the folder it is in. But the installer should have adapted them to the path where you actually installed WinBoard, when creating the menu items.

[kinderchocolate]

I installed the software in the Program Files folder, instead of the default C:\. Then I tried to start Winboard from the Windows Start menu. I guess it crashed because the installation path wasn't default.